Wrecked Sears Stuck in Limbo : Building Is Key to Area’s Fate but Simi Can’t Get It Repaired or Razed

While the decaying hulk of the earthquake-damaged Sears Outlet building continues to blight its Tapo Street neighborhood, the city’s efforts to have the building razed or repaired are moldering in legal limbo.

Even after pressuring the building’s owners for more than a year, city attorneys are having trouble proceeding with legal action against them:

One owner is dead, and until he is replaced by a trustee, attorneys cannot serve papers for a hearing, in which they would ask the courts to declare the damaged building a public nuisance and order it fixed or torn down.

Property manager and part owner Lawrence Morse says he too is having trouble:

He has yet to seal a deal with anyone who would rent or buy the ruined building once leased by Sears, he says, and he cannot afford to raze it.

And neighboring merchants say they are still having trouble working near the gaping wreck, which has hurt their business for more than 20 months.

“It’s taken a very long time,” said Assistant City Manager Don Penman. “Everybody in the city’s very disappointed.”

Penman said city officials will huddle with affected merchants Oct. 17 to brainstorm on an overall development plan for the area that could find a solution to the deadlock.

It was in January, 1994, that the Northridge earthquake shattered the ceilings and windows of the Sears Outlet and the Pic ‘N’ Save store next to it.

Pic ‘N’ Save’s owners demolished their building last February. But Morse said he and other owners of the building cannot afford to spend the $100,000 to demolish it until he has a buyer or renter lined up.

“I am talking to different people,” said Morse, a Beverly Hills accountant.

But he is keeping his cards close to the vest.

“I’m really not at liberty to discuss specifics or details,” Morse said Monday. “These are things that are in progress. I don’t know when or if they’ll come to fruition. We’re very anxious to come to something, and we’d like to have the property rebuilt and have tenants again.”

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Across the parking lot from the wracked shell sits one of Simi Valley’s oldest restaurants, on the verge of going out of business.

“I’ve lost a lot of money,” said restaurateur Steve Tsemetzin.

Tsemetzin opened Nappy’s Restaurant 25 years ago, serving classic American diner food round-the-clock to shoppers, lunchtime crowds, even actors who used to work at nearby Corriganville ranch.

But no one films much at Corriganville anymore.

The quake took his Sears and Pic ‘N’ Save customers.

And the resulting eyesore drove away some of his lunchtime crowd, he said.

Tsemetzin figures he lost half his business after the earthquake. That forced him to shut down the graveyard shift a few weeks ago, leaving Nappy’s dark from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. Sunday to Thursday.

He let his lease lapse because he is unsure whether the owners will ever fix the Sears building. And he wonders whether he should have spent the $135,000 it cost to replace smashed dishware and patch ruptured plumbing the quake caused to his restaurant.

“I have been here for more than 25 years, and it just hurts me to see something like this,” he said. “But I just can’t go on forever. . . . It just breaks my heart. It’s like part of me there, and to see it go down the drain continuously. I’ve had [employees] there for 20 years, and it’ll be hard to let some people go.”

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Three doors down from the quake-wracked shell sits the clinic of Dr. Caesar Julian.

Julian, too, is holding off major renovations on his clinic--also one of Simi’s oldest--until someone fixes or levels the former Sears building.

Julian says he is angry that the city has not moved faster to condemn the site because teen vandals are breaking in, breaking fluorescent light tubes, setting fires and defecating among the old sofas and fallen ceiling tiles.

But he also blames the building’s owners for letting it deteriorate that badly.

“It’s not only an eyesore, it’s a safety and health problem, which concerns me as a physician, not to mention as a neighbor,” said Julian, a family doctor. “What excuse do [the owners] have for ignoring a city? As a property owner . . . you have a responsibility to your community. You can’t just let it be trashed.”

But he is reluctant to move. His patients are used to the location, Julian said.

City officials have pressed Morse and the other owners for a year.

Since September, 1994, they have ordered him repeatedly--with no effect--to fix the building or knock it down. And repeatedly, Morse has asked for more time.

Finally, about two weeks ago, the city filed legal papers seeking a hearing and a Ventura County Superior Court declaration that the building is a public nuisance. The owners still have 30 days to respond, and until they are all served, the city cannot proceed, City Atty. John Torrance said.

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Once the court makes such a finding, Torrance said, the city can ask for another court order requiring the owners to abate the nuisance by fixing the building or knocking it down.

But Morse says there is little he can do with the building until someone agrees to rent or buy.

“I will say we’re moving ahead,” he said. “I’d love to not be in this situation. We’ve lost more than anyone in the valley. We had a building that was generating revenue and has now lost revenue.”